The improver of natural knowledge absolutely refuses to acknowledge authority, as such. For him, skepticism is the highest of duties; blind faith the one unpardonable sin. Thomas Huxley

Friday, May 20, 2016

Auckland Under Fire

Henny Pulse, Deputy Squawker for the Associated Cluckfusters Collective, is all a’flutter about the challenges recently made to the proposed Unitary Plan.
Your humble scribe interviewed her on the background. Henny, resplendent in polished wattles and her customary bright pink legband, was positively crowing about the proposals.
‘As you know’, she intoned, ‘we already have a Plan, which includes a RUB. It’s taken years and years and a whole lotta pellets kindly supplied by our ever-giving funders, to get this to the starting point. We have a whole team devoted to it, the grey-leg-banded ones. We call them the ClusterFlock. And we have a Hendependent Hearings Panel to make sure it goes through just like we want. And there are 23,000, no wait, 23,005 new plans consented. So the challenge is just piffle - there's no shortage of Potential HenHouses.’

Your scribe reminded Henny that the point of the challenge was that the land pricing was All Clucked Up because of the RUB, as shown by the Productivity Commissions Hextensive research. This shows price differentials for raw urban land inside the chicken-fencing, that were around 10 times the price of the cow paddocks Outside the Caforesaid fence. Plus, your scribe boldly asserted, the assorted CluckFusters had caved to the NIMBY and BANANA types who infest the Wider Chicken-run.
Henny was quick to bounce this away.
‘Why’, she warbled, ‘there just hasn’t been enough thought given to the working poor and those who need to get their tiny claws on the first rung of the Ladder to Permanent Perchdom, not to mention laying the odd Egg or three in a Suitable Nesting-Box. That's what those 23,005, no, wait, 23,023 new consents are all about. Perches for All!’
Assuming the royal ‘we’, we then reminded Henny that this didn't at all address the two Unfortunate Obstacles to Affordable perches: the fact that artificial chicken-fencerating raised HenHouse prices everywhere, and that practically every one of those 23.040 consents vould not be afforded by younger two-tooth chickens, or by those with Insufficient Chicken-feed to - er - Deposit.
‘Oh, that’, she waved an arm dismissively. ‘Well, as you will be aware, we now have a Team of Henconomists who have clucked around with this notion, subjected it to Henpirical Tests (I think that’s the phrase), and have advised us of their findings.’
‘It seems a rare phenomehen they are terming Henflation, has condemned a whole generation of hatchlings to nesting under bridges and at the top of power poles – all Elfin Safety Hazards in the Extreme.’
‘Therefore we are determined, after more, careful Henconomic Research, to put a stop to this in the Interests of the Wider Flock’.
We then reminded Henny that the rare phenomehen had already caused Nesting-Box prices, expressed in terms of years of pellets per annum, to rise way above 10 years’ supply: in the Severely UnHenFordable range. And what did she propose to do about That, given that there was, whodathunk, a link between Planning and Price?
‘Well, nothing immediate’, Henny replied. ‘We have to rely on the Sage Advice of our Henconomists and Planners to get ourselves out of this’.
‘Now, sorry, must fly, there’s Perch Contest soon and I wanna be Head Hen for once’, and so she departed, leaving your faithful scribe to ponder why it was that the very same Cluster-Flock who had propelled us Into all this schemozzle, were gonna be relied upon to get us Out…..